When someone calls about building a custom home in Richmond Hill, they almost always lead with the same question: how soon can we start? The honest answer — the one that has saved a lot of our clients a lot of money over 50 years — is that we don't actually want to start tomorrow. The first 60 days are where the project either gets built right or doesn't.
This post is a plain look at how we spend those 60 days, why each step matters more on the Georgia coast than it does inland, and what to expect if you're thinking about a custom home in Bryan County, Pooler, Savannah, or anywhere across Coastal Georgia.
Days 1–10: A real conversation about what you actually need
Most people start a custom home with a Pinterest board. That's fine — it tells us what you like. What we need from the first conversation is what you actually need. Are you going to live in this house for ten years or thirty? Do you work from home? Are aging parents going to move in eventually? Is this a primary residence or a second home you'll come back to from Atlanta or Charlotte?
We've watched custom homes get built around features people thought they wanted and then never used. A wine cellar with no humidity control, a formal dining room that turned into a junk drop, a third garage bay that was supposed to be a workshop. Beautiful homes, but they didn't match the life inside them.
So before we draw anything, we ask the questions that don't show up on Pinterest. What time does the family wake up? Where does the morning sun need to land? Where do you actually want to spend Saturday afternoon in August? In Coastal Georgia, the answer to that last one is usually outside, on a porch, with a fan running, and that changes how we orient the house on the lot.
Days 10–20: Walking the lot and reading the coast
A lot in Richmond Hill is not the same as a lot in Atlanta, and a builder who treats them the same will cost you money. We walk every site at least twice, and the things we're looking for are not the things you find on a survey.
We're looking at where the wind comes from off the marsh. Where the water sits after a heavy rain. Where the existing live oaks are — because if you can save a 200-year-old live oak, you do, and that decision constrains everything downstream. We're checking the elevation against the flood map and figuring out what FEMA's going to require for your finished floor height. We're noting the neighbors' setbacks, the easements, the soils. We're standing where the kitchen window will be and seeing what you'll actually look at from the sink for the next thirty years.
This is also when we have the honest conversation about budget vs site. Some lots cost more to build on than others. A lot with a 4-foot drop across it, a flag-shaped curve, or a wetland buffer is going to add money to your foundation, your sitework, and your permitting. None of that is a problem — but it has to be on the table before you spend $250,000 on a lot and find out the foundation will eat another $80,000.
Days 20–35: Design conversations, not drawings yet
Here's where most builders rush, and we don't. Before any architect or designer puts pen to paper, we want a tight, written program that we all agree on:
- How many bedrooms and what kind of bedrooms (kids? guests? a primary suite with two closets, two sinks, separate water closet?)
- How the kitchen connects to everything else (open to family? open to porch? separate prep pantry?)
- Whether you need a real laundry room or a stacked closet
- Garage configuration and how cars actually flow through it
- Porch sizes and which ones are screened (in Coastal Georgia, at least one screened porch is non-negotiable — the bugs will tell you why)
- A finish-level expectation, in plain English, so we're not surprised when the cabinet allowance comes back
We translate that program into early budget conversations. Not a contract estimate — a real, builder-experience budget by category: foundation, framing, roof, mechanical, finishes. Honest ranges. If your program is going to land at $1.2M and your budget is $900K, we'd rather have that conversation in Week 4 than in Month 8.
Days 35–50: The design partner, and we don't get out of the way
A lot of builders hand the design phase off to an architect and check back in when the plans are done. We don't. We sit in design meetings because we know what's going to be hard to build, what's going to cost more than it looks like it'll cost, and where a small adjustment now saves a wall framer two days later.
This is also where we start coordinating the things that go into a Coastal Georgia custom home but aren't always on a residential designer's radar:
- Wind-rated structural details. Bryan and Chatham Counties have wind requirements that change how trusses are designed, how roof sheathing gets nailed, how shear walls are placed.
- Moisture management. The Coast isn't kind to homes built without a real plan for water — capillary breaks, proper flashing, ventilated assemblies. We pick assemblies that hold up here, not assemblies that hold up in Charlotte.
- Foundation strategy. Slab, conditioned crawlspace, or pier-and-beam. There is a right answer per lot, and we want to make that call before the structural engineer is asked to commit to one.
- Window and door schedules. Hurricane-rated where required, low-E for the heat, and a real conversation about how much glass faces west.
Days 50–60: Estimating you can actually use
By Day 50 we have a set of plans we believe in and a specification list that's specific enough to estimate accurately. Now we go to our subs and our suppliers, and we get real numbers — not guesses. Plumbing, electrical, HVAC, framing, foundation, masonry, roofing, drywall, painting, flooring, cabinetry, countertops, appliances, sitework, landscape, permits.
We put it on paper as a line-item estimate so you can read it. You'll know what your kitchen costs. You'll know what your foundation costs. You'll know what we're holding for contingency and why. If you want to spend less on cabinets and more on the screened porch, that's a five-minute conversation, not a redesign.
We also build a schedule at this stage — week-by-week, with milestones tied to inspection dates, materials lead times, and weather windows. This is where our construction management process earns its keep: every trade gets sequenced against the others, every inspection has a real date, and every long-lead item is ordered before it can hold up framing. In Coastal Georgia you don't pour concrete the morning after a tropical depression, and a builder who doesn't account for that loses two weeks every hurricane season.
By the end of Day 60 you have:
- A clear program you agreed to
- A site analysis you understand
- Plans that match the program and the site
- A specification that's detailed enough to budget honestly
- A real estimate broken out by trade
- A schedule with milestones you can read
- A contract that says all of the above
That's when we sign. Not before.
Why this matters more on the Coast
You can build a custom home faster than this. Plenty of builders do. The reason we don't is that the Georgia coast is unforgiving when a builder cuts corners on the front end. Wind, water, heat, salt, and code don't negotiate. The corrections show up in years two through ten, and by then it's the homeowner's problem.
We've been doing this for 50 years across Coastal Georgia — Richmond Hill, Savannah, Pooler, Bryan and Chatham counties, Bluffton on the SC side. Every project we've delivered on time and within budget started with a slow, careful first 60 days.
If you're thinking about building, we'd love to have the first conversation. There's no pitch in it — just questions, a notebook, and a clear answer to whether what you want is buildable on the lot you have, for the budget you can carry.
Want to start the conversation? Reach out — or look at some of the custom homes we've built across Coastal Georgia. If you'd like to see the full portfolio across residential, commercial, and hospitality, start here.